Specifications

can cause the plastic housing to melt; soldering most connections should only take a second or
two, to get in there and out again. If you visit Youtube, there are many great tutorials showing
how to solder, and how useful tips and info on selecting the right iron etc, so do yourself a favour
and study them; in this game, it’s pretty much essential knowledge.
Do I need a different radio?
Yep. AM radios and BL motors simply don’t mix 99% of the time, there is too much RF (Radio
Frequency) interference generated by the motor and its wires. An FM radio (like I used to use)
will yield much better results, but even that glitches occasionally & has a limited range. The best
upgrade is a digital 2.4Gigahertz item. I cant speak for which brand is best, but as always,
(you’ve guessed it) read around.
3. Low voltage cutoffs
What’s an lvc?
What voltage model should I buy?
Do I need one for each battery?
What if there isn’t one for my voltage lipos?
Which brand?
How do I connect it up?
Can I use it with Nimhs or A123 batteries?
What about the other kind of LVCs?
Where do I get one?
What’s an LVC?
Low Voltage Cutoff. It is a device that fits between the esc and throttle channel on the receiver
(rx), and also connects to the power wires of the lipo battery. When it detects the voltage has
dropped blow a certain level, it alters the throttle signal coming from the rx and prevents the esc
from running the motor, thus preventing the lipos from discharging further. Different LVCs work in
different ways; some kill the throttle altogether, some reduce the throttle power (known as soft
shutdown or cutoff), whilst others are merely buzzers or flashing LEDs to warn the user that their
batteries are running low. Either way, when the LVC begins to kick in, you should stop running
the truck.
What voltage model should I buy?
This depends on a couple things:
Does your esc have dual battery inputs or just a single + and – lead?
Do you trust my advice more than that of other people?
Point being that the Evx(2) and HvMaxx type escs (older model with no LVC built in) use a pair of
2s lipos, but each one has its own input lead to the esc. Now, these type of escs generally use
one input lead/lipo to also power the BEC (Battery Eliminator Circuit- powers the esc’s brain and
the servos/rx), so one lipo will discharge slightly faster than the other. If using an lvc that
monitors the total voltage, it can be fooled into thinking that both lipos are still in the safe
voltage zone, for example:
One 2s lipo is at 5v, the other is at 7v = 12v total, but one lipo has cells that are at only 2.5v,
which is dangerously low.
To prevent this kind of issue, my personal advice is to run a single 2s LVC on the lipo that also
powers the BEC, there by preventing either lipo from discharging below the safe voltage level.
The BEC side of the esc can be found by plugging in a single 2s lipo to the esc; the side that
activates the esc but wont run the motors is the BEC side- the non-BEC side will do nothing with
a single lipo pack plugged into it.